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Computational Repurposing of Drugs and Natural Products Against SARS-CoV-2
Nikolai Petrovsky, College of Medicine and Public Health, Flinders University || Vaxine Pty Ltd
David A Winkler, Department of Biochemistry and Chemistry, La Trobe Institute for Molecular Science, La Trobe University || Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Monash University || School of Pharmacy, University of Nottingham
Sakshi Piplani, College of Medicine and Public Health, Flinders University || Vaxine Pty Ltd
The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has required the development of new methods for rapidly developing effective vaccines and drugs to treat COVID- 19 patients. There are approximately 12,000 existing drugs, approved natural products, and clinical trials candidates whose safety in man has already been established. Computational repurposing of these drugs, where mathematical methods are used to simulate their interactions with key proteins in the virus, is a rapid way to find new treatments for SARS-CoV-2.
The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has required new methods for rapidly developing effective vaccines and drugs to treat COVID-19 patients. There are approximately 12,000 existing drugs, approved natural products, and clinical trials candidates whose safety in man has already been established. Computational repurposing of these drugs, where mathematical methods are used to simulate their interactions with key proteins in the virus, is a rapid way to find new treatments for SARS-CoV-2.
The COVID-19 pandemic caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus has infected at least 500 million people and has killed almost 7 million, both numbers likely to be underestimates. There has been a massive mobilisation of scientific research efforts around the world to understand the origin and structure of the virus, and to develop effective vaccines and drugs to treat patients with COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus. While rapid progress has been made in a relatively short space of time in both vaccines and therapeutics, the treatment options for patients severely ill with COVID-19 remain limited. Unfortunately, traditional development of new drugs takes of the order of 10-15 years, which is unacceptably long for pandemics when drugs are needed as soon as possible.
One approach to drug discovery that can be productive in very short time frames is the repurposing of existing drugs. Already approved drugs, natural products, and drugs already in clinical trials for other indications have all been tested for safety in man and could be used 'off label' for emergency use in a pandemic. The principle behind our in silico antiviral drug screening approach is that all drugs hit targets other than those for which they are designed, this off-target activity is the origin of most drug side-effects. This off-target activity has also been exploited in the serendipitous discovery of several blockbuster drugs such as Viagra and Minoxidil (both originally antihypertensive drug candidates). While all 12,000 or so repurposing candidates could in principle be tested experimentally for activity against virus targets or in vitro, it is much faster and cheaper to use computational methods to achieve this. This realisation caused an unprecedented surge in publications where we and others have used molecular docking to identify promising drugs that could bind to the dozen or more viable target proteins in SARS-CoV-2.
While most widely used molecular docking software is easy to run, these studies have varied enormously in quality and outcomes because, without full understanding of the protein target properties and limitations of the software, the results obtained can be unreliable at best and meaningless at worst. Considerable understanding of the structural biology of the targets and the operational parameters of the docking software is required to achieve robust results, as was reviewed very recently.
In the studies summarised below, rigorous computational methods were used to identify potentially useful COVID-19 drug candidates for repurposing. This involved a combination of validated molecular docking methods (that calculate the orientation and binding energy of drugs to binding sites in proteins), and molecular dynamics methods (that allow for protein and drug flexibility and calculate more accurate binding poses and energies) to identify the most promising drugs and natural products for treating COVID-19. Most importantly, rigorous quality control measures were applied at every step in the process to ensure the quality of the target predictions.
Three key protein targets essential for the function of SARS-CoV-2 were used to screen a large library of ~12,000 small molecule drug candidates. The targets were the main protease of the virus, Mpro or 3CLpro, the RNA -dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp, essential for viral replication), and the helicase (also part of the virus' replicative machinery). The docking calculations were validated by redocking drugs into the relevant protein binding sites to recapitulate the binding poses in the experimental structure. The calculations were run on large GPU cluster machines generously made available during the pandemic by Oracle Cloud Systems. The top 80-100 drug candidates identified by the docking calculations were subjected to molecular dynamics calculations to improve the estimates of the relative binding energies of drugs to proteins, and their binding poses in the protein active sites. Subsequent literature searches disclosed that >30 per cent of our predicted repurposing candidates for all three SARS-CoV-2 protein targets have experimental validation data, a very impressive validation rate for the computational methods employed.
SARS-CoV-2 Mpro inhibitors
Mpro is a key protease essential to SARS-CoV-2 function. We therefore screened drug libraries for compounds that might bind and inhibit Mpro . Several of the top ten best binding drug candidates were antiviral agents simeprevir, sofosbuvir, lopinavir, ritonavir and remdesivir. The more interesting candidates had similar binding affinities and were of diverse activity classes. These were bemcentinib (AXL receptor kinase inhibitor), montelukast (leukotriene receptor antagonist), ergotamine and mergocriptine (ergot alkaloids with adrenergic and dopaminergic receptor agonist activities). Bemcentinib shows in vitro activity against SARS-CoV-2 with 10-40 per cent protection at 50μM in Vero cells and an IC50 of 100nM and CC50 of 4.7μM in Huh cells. Indeed, it is already an investigational treatment for COVID-19 , with a phase 2 trial underway. Montelukast another interesting hit has been shown to produce a significant reduction in SARS-CoV-2 infection in elderly asthmatic patients and has a reported in vitro SARS-CoV-2 IC50 of 18.8 μM, and CC50 >20 μM.
SARS-CoV-2 RdRp inhibitors
Given the function of SARS-CoV-2 RdRp to bind RNA, its binding site is large. Most of the repurposed drugs in the list of 20 best binders we predicted had relatively large complex structures and substantial ligand flexibility. Antiviral drugs accounted for half of this list, the remaining compounds in being mostly natural products or their derivatives. These were of particular interest given their relative novelty and molecular diversity. Interestingly, our computational screen identified ivermectin as fitting snugly into the RdRp binding pocket. Ivermectin and other avermectins and milbemycins are broad-spectrum antiparasitic macrocyclic lactones that have shown inconsistent activity against SARS-CoV-2. Ivermectin has been widely touted as a drug against COVID-19, although the debate around its use has become highly politicized. It is interesting, therefore, that our unbiased screening methods identified Ivermectin as one of its top hits. Digoxin is a widely used cardiac drug used to treat heart arrythmias and cardiac failure and has a large complex structure that fitted well into the RdRp binding pocket. It exhibited potent in vitro antiviral effects against SARS-CoV-2 in Vero cells (IC50 37 nM). Another tightly binding natural product, silibinin, is a flavonolignan that is the major active constituent of silymarin, a standardised extract of the milk thistle seeds. It can function as an antioxidant, antineoplastic drug, and hepatoprotectant. Rapamycin, a macrolide antifungal metabolite with immunosuppressant activity that also bound tightly to RdRp, is currently in COVID-19 clinical trials. Other highly ranked natural products from our in silico screens included: carbetocin, a synthetic analogue of oxytocin;eribulin, a fully synthetic macrocyclic ketone analogue of the marine natural product halichondrin B, a potent anti-mitotic anticancer agent; novobiocin, a DNA gyrase and bacterial type IIA topoisomerase inhibitor; and ergotamine and related ergot alkaloids also predicted by us and others to bind several SARS-CoV-2 molecular targets, including the main protease, Mpro.
SARS-CoV-2 Helicase inhibitors
The twenty molecules with the best predicted helicase binding affinity can be broadly characterized as containing one or more hydrophobic aromatic moieties linked to another polycyclic moiety containing hydrogen bond donors or acceptors. These molecules come from diverse drug classes, with antiviral agents making up 25 per cent of the hits and antihistamines and antipsychotics also being well represented. The most interesting non-antiviral agents identified by the study were hesperidin(citrus flavanone glycoside), rutin (flavonol glycoside), conivaptan (vasopressin inhibitor), aprepitant (NK1 antagonist), manidipine (Ca channel blocker, anti-hypertensive), aminoquinuride (trypanocidal agent), antrafenine (analgesic anti-inflammatory), epirubicin (anticancer intercalator), dicoumarol (anticoagulant), fluspirilene (antipsychotic), fexofenadine (antihistamine), astemizole (antihistamine), sertindole and pimozide (antipsychotics). Of these manidipine exhibits broad-spectrum antiviral activity, with SARS-CoV-2 IC50=2μM in HUH7 cells and 7.5μM in Vero cells. Tipranavir also exhibits a relatively broad spectrum of antiviral activity, inhibiting replication of SARS-CoV-2 in VeroE6 cells. Fluspirilene activity against SARSCoV- 2 was reported to be 3.1μM in Vero E6 cells, mirroring the activity of fluspirilene against MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV in Vero E6 cells of 7.5μM and 6.0μM, respectively. Astemizole had an EC50 of 1μM against SARSCoV- 2 in Vero E6 cells and 4.9μM and 5.5μM against MERS-CoV and SARS respectively.
Computational screening methods promise fast and reliable identification from libraries of existing drugs, clinical trials candidates, and approved natural products of compounds that may have useful activity against SARS-CoV-2. The three studies summarised here show that docking methods are capable of reliably predicting the binding pose of drugs to structures of virus target proteins. ComplementaryMD simulations performed on the repurposing candidates with the highest docking scores provide more reliable relative binding affinities of these drugs for the targets, allowing the docking hits to be ranked for activity. This is a very rapid and efficient way to screen for potential anti-viral drug activities.
The fact that >30 per cent of the top 80-100 repurposing candidates we identified have experimental activity against the target and/or the virus, with several already in clinical trials for treating COVID-19 shows the computational predictions were highly reliable. Therefore, the 70 per cent of repurposing candidates identified by these studies that have not yet been assessed for in vitro or in vivo activity could provide a rich resource of potentially useful drugs for treating COVID-19. As these are generally applicable, platform methods, they are equally suitable for identifying repurposed drugs to treat neglected tropical diseases, or viral infections and future pandemics.[5]We are seeing the beginning of an era where experimental high throughput drug screens will complement structural biology-based and machine learning methods to provide faster, more efficient, cheaper, and more robust methods for repurposing existing drugs or discovering new ones.
1. Muratov, E.; Brown, N.; Fourches, D.; Kozakov, D.; Medina-Franco, J.L.; Merz, K.; Isayev, O.; Oprea, T.; Poroikov, V.; Varnek, A.; Winkler, D.A.; Zakharov, A.; Cherkasov, A.; Tropsha, A. A critical overview of computational approaches employed for COVID-19 drug discovery. Chem. Soc. Rev., 2021, 50, 9121-9151.
2. Piplani, S.; Singh, P.; Petrovsky, N.; Winkler, D.A. Computational Repurposing of Drugs and Natural Products Against SARS-CoV-2 Main Protease (M pro ) as Potential COVID-19 Therapies, Front. Mol. Biosci. 2022, 9, 781039.
3. Piplani, S.; Singh, P.; Petrovsky, N.; Winkler, D.A. Computational screening of repurposed drugs and natural products against SARS-CoV-2 RNA-dependent RNA polymerase as potential COVID-19 therapies, Mol. Biomed. 2021, 2, 28
4. Piplani, S.; Singh, P.; Petrovsky, N.; Winkler, D.A. Potential COVID-19 therapies from computational repurposing of drugs and natural products against the SARS-CoV-2 helicase, RSC Digit. Dis. 2022 in review.
5. Winkler, D.A. Use of artificial intelligence and machine learning for discovery of drugs for neglected tropical diseases, invited paper, Front. Chem. 2021, 9, 39
--Issue 48--
Nikolai Petrovsky is Professor of Medicine at Flinders University, Director of Endocrinology at Flinders Medical Centre and Research Director of Vaxine, an Adelaide-based biotechnology company focused on vaccine development. He has been awarded over 50 million dollars in vaccine grants including from the US National Institutes of Health. In addition to authoring over 200 peer-reviewed research papers he is an inventor on multiple vaccine patents, and most recently developed the Covax-19/SpikoGen® vaccine against COVID-19 that in October 2021 received emergency use authorization in Iran, making it the first recombinant protein COVID-19 vaccine in the world to receive approval, and the first successful human vaccine developed in Australia in the last 40 years.
David A Winkler is Professor of Biochemistry &Chemistry at La Trobe University. He applies computational chemistry, AI, and machine learning to design drugs, agrochemicals, nanomaterials, and biomaterials. He is ranked 227th of 81,000 medicinal chemists worldwide and has written >250 journal articles and book chapters and his H index is 54.
Sakshi Piplani is a Senior Bioinformatics Scientist skilled in Structural Bioinformatics, Data Analytics, Machine learning. She uses computational modelling of immuogenic receptors, discovery of potential new drugs/lead compounds through machine learning and virtual screening. She also uses computers to simulate protein structures, and identify their functions.


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Christine Nordhagen
Wrestling Athlete - Inducted 2010
Christine Nordhagen came from a small farming community in Northern Alberta called Valhalla Centre. She is known as the Canadian pioneer of women's wrestling. Christine did not discover competitive wrestling until the age of 20 while studying for her education degree at the University of Alberta. She competed in the 68 kg, 72 kg and 75 kg weight classes.
In 1992, women's wrestling was included at the Canadian Championships. Christine took the competition by storm and never looked back. For 12 years she was a dominating force in the world of women's wrestling. Christine won 10 Canadian Championships and was World Champion in 1994, 1996, 1997, 1998, 2000 and 2001. In 2001, the announcement came that women's wrestling would be an event at the 2004 Athens Summer Olympic Games. Christine qualified for a spot on the Olympic team and placed fifth at the Games.
Christine Nordhagen received many honours during her career. In 1997, the wrestling world governing body named her as the Top International Female. She was the first woman to be inducted into the International Wrestling Federation Hall of Fame and the Canadian Amateur Wrestling Association Hall of Fame. She was also honoured with a "Breakthrough Award" by the Canadian Association for the Advancement of Women in Sport.
Christine Nordhagen is an incredible ambassador for the sport of wrestling and was instrumental in the international growth of women's wrestling.
2005 - Alberta Centennial Salute Award for Sport and Recreation - one of 100 to receive the award.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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��� Code Of Practice For Social Care Workers 2015
The Acas Code of Practice on disciplinary and grievance procedures is the minimum an employer should follow for handling these issues code of practice for social care workers 2015 the workplace. A transdisciplinary code of practice for social care workers 2015 differs from the interdisciplinary in that it requires code of practice for social care workers 2015 members to be sufficiently familiar What Is Emmett Till Essay the approach of each. In case management, the patient can also be code of practice for social care workers 2015 as the "client," meaning the individual receiving case management services. In fact, case management has been a key function of social work since the founding of the profession Commission for Case Manager Certification, You know, privilege, social privilege code of practice for social care workers 2015 that comes up a lot. It establishes an ethical standard that is non-negotiable in all roles and in all settings. Selected potentially helpful code of practice for social care workers 2015 resources are listed in Table 2. Although the percentage of social workers has remained constant, the code of practice for social care workers 2015 number of current Code of practice for social care workers 2015 Essay On Heavens Gate code of practice for social care workers 2015 grown, from approximately 30, to 40,
Health and Social Care Standards - the standards and codes of practice
You know, obviously, coordination is something that social workers in the field do all the time so it's nice to know that our national organisations are doing that, and it's also nice to know that that narrative exists, that this isn't just a siloed initiative on the part of NASW, that this is part of the larger profession's recognition of selfcare and response to what's been going on for decades, but certainly was highlighted after the Black Lives Matter movement started and certainly with George Floyd's death in So, since you've already kind of alluded to it, I know that there's this change in our understanding of cultural humility, that's what you talked about in the New Social Worker article, the Standard 1.
And I think there's been a struggle within the profession - you can see it in the literature - about what's the appropriate language that we should be using in terms of how do we engage with people from diverse backgrounds whether it's race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, disability, all those different ranges of cultures. So, what's the appropriate terminology? And so I am only speaking for myself, I can't speak for NASW I was not involved in the choice of language this time , but one of the things that NASW did talk about in the webinar when they introduced the revisions to the Code of Ethics is they said 'regardless of whether you prefer the term cultural competence, cultural awareness, cultural responsiveness, or cultural humility, there's something in there for everyone to like, and there's.
And I think what may have been the reason that they chose the term Cultural Competence for the heading is that when we look at the Code of Ethics' setting standards, it's setting standards for behaviours and behaviours are recognised within the term competence. Now, there's been a huge critique about the term cultural competence because it sounds as if you're saying 'I could take a couple of classes, read some books, do a little bit of work, and then I can become fully knowledgeable about what's best to serve a particular client group'.
I think what we need to do in order to fit with the new definitions in 1. Part of that skills and knowledge and attitudes is a sense of cultural awareness and cultural humility, and humility being the sense that we don't know everything about the clients that we are serving. And so we need some guidance from the people that we are serving ourselves, and we should act from this point of humility rather than this view of, you know, I am the expert in somebody else's life and I know what to do for them. So they've included the language of cultural humility in 1. So for those people who believe in cultural humility, one of the things that this revision does is that it actually educates social workers and our agencies and the people we serve about what are some of the key components about cultural humility, and this was never included in prior explanations about cultural competence or cultural awareness.
I think it's really interesting that there's a directive in 1. Can you talk about that section? So people who read this will notice there were a couple of places where there was language like understanding and knowledge and they have added the word 'demonstrate' understanding or 'demonstrate' knowledge so there has to be an action, it's not okay for there to be something about culture in our head, it has to be something that we demonstrate through skills. But I think what you're really talking about here is that last sentence in 1. So, a couple of things here that are brand new. First of all, this is in the part on our obligations to clients. We already have in Part 6 in the Code of Ethics our obligations to society, and within those obligations to society we already had an obligation to promote social justice and to take stands against oppression and racism and inequities in all of their forms.
So it's kind of interesting that they placed this here in obligations to a particular client, but what I can imagine it saying that's different from before is - I'm working with a client and it may be on a mental health issue or it may be a divorce issue, and in the background of it there might be some inequities that they're experiencing. Maybe they've been mistreated by the criminal justice system, the child welfare system, they've got some health inequities, whatever it is we have an obligation to take a stand against that and so I think perhaps what this may be doing is bridging the, sometime the chasm between micro work and macro work, and I'm not sure if that was actually the intention but when I'm teaching my clients that I think I'm going to hold this out as saying, you know, there isn't really a difference between micro, macro, and meso - they're all linked - and guess what?
Look at how it's worded in 1. The language of the word 'must', that's kind of unusual for the Code of Ethics, usually it says 'should', so 'must' is stronger language and I'm not sure if that was deliberate but it may be part of the movement towards anti-racism. It's not good enough for me to be unbiased, I have to be actually be anti-racist, anti-oppressive, I have to take a stand on these issues and not just be silent and say 'well, I'm not being racist so that's good enough'. It must take action. So people who are taking action, who are acknowledging their personal privilege, who are acting against racism, anybody that says 'well, that's just you, personally', right, that's not 'you being a social worker' now there is actually this space in the Code of Ethics that's like, no this is actually what it means to be an ethical social worker.
And I think it's saying whether you're working with individuals, families, groups, or doing policy or community organisation, you have those obligations. Cause I think we did have them already under Part 6 of the Code, but I think this strengthens it, and also acknowledgment of personal privilege was never explained before in the Code of Ethics. I'm not sure about the language of personal privilege, I tried to do some research on that.
You know, privilege, social privilege - that comes up a lot. Personal privilege in terms of Robert's Rules of Order but I think what they're talking about is privilege in terms of race, ethnicity, gender, etc - so white privilege, heterosexist privilege, cisgender privilege, that we need to be aware of that. And that may be part of biases, the way that we assess or intervene, and we need to take corrective action there, so when you look at the language there in 1. And if I'm correct, that's another one of those places where it's seems like, yes, you might be working indicuaully with someone using telephony or telehealth, but you can't just say 'oh, there's a barrier that's out of my micro practice realm.
That's not really something for me to deal with'. In the individual Responsibilities to Clients section it is saying that part of what is ethical practice is seeking to prevent such potential barriers to this use of electronic technology. So rather than me saying 'we're going to do video conferencing from now on', making sure that people have access to the technology, that people have the training and use of technology, making sure that if there are some points of reluctance to use of technology that we assess where is that coming from, and that maybe there are some cultural differences or socioeconomic differences that we need to attend to.
What is critical self-reflection mean to you? But for each and every client that I'm serving I have to perhaps sit down ahead of time, before I even meet with the client and sit down and maybe write down or go into my mind, what are some of my beliefs and what might some assumptions be that might hold or might not hold in working with a particular group? And it doesn't necessarily mean that I've got strong bias against a particular population, but I might just have a belief that is perhaps skewed in some way.
I'm working with a person who's blind and, you know, when I see a person who's blind who's graduated from college I think 'wow, how fantastic they are', and I have to look at that as being, you know what? If I use that word enough, I give a person accolades for doing something which is normal for them, good for them, it's not something that's a reflection of them being some super being because they've got a disability. Perhaps I can modify how I'm going to work with that client, and work with them in a way that's more conducive to their exceptions, their hopes, and what would be supportive of them. There's a lot of a time where I've caught myself in engaging in a micro-aggression with a student.
I had a student who was performing some services at an agency and I said 'wow, you were able to do that as a student?! And so sometimes we may think we're doing something positive for a client, the critical self-reflection helps us to check out those assumptions and be aware of them. And so, you know, we can self-correct and sometimes our clients are teaching us but we have to be aware to be aware to hear those messages, to respond, to apologize when appropriate, to take those corrective actions in working with them in the future. Especially clients that you've worked with for a while. And you mention students, I know that I got feedback from one of my students about how I was not being critical in my self-reflection in class because, she said 'my classmates were expressing opinions about what the LGBTQ community thought and did, and you did not open up any space for those of us who are also in the community who think about things differently and who do things differently, to share that perspective', it was almost like they were right, and that was the only way to see things or do things.
And for me, that was a really important moment to, again, you had a student who called you out, or called you in, and this student did the same thing for me about thinking through my own bias and it allowed me to do some self-correction, to make sure I was thinking about, 'am I making this group that is not a monolith, a monolith? So I think that's a really important piece of being self-reflection and critically self-reflective. And it fits with the commitment to lifelong learning. You know, we don't have fewer opportunities for critical self-reflection as we get more experienced, we have to continue in the same vein and continue to be open to learning. Also in conjunction with technology, more people are involved in cross-border social work — across state borders, across international borders — and so I think this is going to give even more rise to look at cultural humility and awareness when working with people we're not even physically connected with and we don't even know their communities that they're exisiting in in a day-to-day basis.
Or when a humanitarian issue happens in another country, for us to jump to conclusions or use the social media to decide what's going on and what people need in those areas, again, go back to the Code of Ethics, it says 'recognise clients are experts in their own culture', and that includes communities and what their expertise is, what they need. Let's partner with, let's support, let's not tell people what they need.
But, again, I really appreciate your insight and your expertise. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you also for being an inspiration for social work and for the ethics of our profession. If you missed an episode, or have suggestions for future episodes, please visit socialworkpodcast. To all the social workers out there: keep up the good work. We know that this is an extremely challenging time for the professionals on our register.
The Code PDF Additional information on delegation and accountability PDF Professional judgement. Speaking up. Inclusivity and challenging discrimination. Social media. Person-centred care. End-of-life care. Good nursing and midwifery care PDF I want to Read the Code Find out about revalidation. Caring with Confidence Caring with Confidence is a series of bite-sized animations about key aspects of your role, and how the Code can support you.
Revalidation Everything you need to know about revalidation.
PDF4. One of the things that that did I think was that it also set up that these organisations were code of practice for social care workers 2015 to work code of practice for social care workers 2015 on future policies. Social services and well-being. Barsky, Victorian poetry characteristics.
Principles of effective communication
English as an international language
Becoming A Nurse Practitioner Essay
Monday, January 03, 2022 2:11:07 PM


values, greater customer lifetime value and increased website revenues. But how do retailers know what customers really think about online experiences? And how do companies act onsuch insights?
The Peerius approach is based around two key engine, which throws up product recommendations at various stages during the consumer's online post-transaction emails to feature personalised recommendations too. "These services give the consumer's online sessions increased relevance and that converts into a greater likelihood of purchase,"says Doddy.
"The beauty of this approach is that recommendations that are served during a session degrade if they are not followed up, creating room for others to surface. Do that constantly and you start to see a fully personalised experience." According to Peerius, introducing its personalisation products to Notonthehighstreet.com led to a 31 per cent increase in average order value, while introducing SMART-mail to ChemistDirect's email marketing had an immediate impact on clickthrough and conversion.
Turning to men's shirt retailer Charles Tyrwhitt , the challenge for Peerius here, says Doddy, was how to give the company's online interface some of the same qualities as the physical shop experience: "A classic scenario was when an item was out of stock.
QuBit comes at customer experience in a similar way, using behavioural insights to help clients personalise cites the example of LK Bennett, which wanted to address the issue of high-value customers who had added items to their checkout basket but never purchased. "What we did was add a free delivery message for people who were leaving the basket page after adding a product to their basket," he explains.
"The result was an 11 per cent increase in conversions in this segment." behavioural approach to customer experience works well because of its immediate impact: "We're not spending five to six months implementing changes. It's a kind of real-time retailing where you can identify an issue and act on it straightaway." This approach is moving to another level now that mobile devices are so central to the consumer journey. QuitBit research analyst Robin Jack says: "One of the most effective ways to personalise is by using a customer's local to alter your messaging.
They could be on their way to the airport to go on a beach holiday and you could offer the option of click-and-collect diving equipment."
Peerius' Doddy is equally enthusiastic about what mobile brings to the customer service story: "For people who opt in to the geo-location piece, there's such a lot you can do. For instance, when they're within 100 metres of your shop, they could get a message saying there's going to be a flash sale for the next 60 minutes.
However' it's important to recognise the improved performance outlined above doesn't mean retailers have somehow cracked the customer experience puzzle. It doesn't, for example, explain why people abandon purchases on the point of completing their transaction. Nor does it fully explain the way they weave backwards and forwards between the physical and virtual retail experience.
One way of trying to fill in these gaps is to ask customers what they think, listen to what they say and respond. QuBit, for example, offer a service called Vision Opinion. "This is a feedback service which triggers as people are about to leave," says Cooke. "It asks a very open-ended question about what they like and what can be improved. We get millions of pieces of feedback that are broken down into categories."
Texas-based Bazaarvoice is a feedback specialist, a company that aggregates opinion from 500 million people a month on 20 million products. This feedback isn't just used internally to access a site's strength and weaknesses, it also has a direct role to play in persuading customers to purchase items.
"All the research indicates that consumer reviews are significantly more trusted than manufacturer descriptions," says Bazaarvoice spokesman Matt Krebsbach, "so our role is to aggregate opinions, questions and experiences, and channel them into places that help sales and marketing teams, and influence purchases decisions."
Developing a direct dialogue with consumers is at the heart of what Bazaarvoice's Connections technology does. This enable brands to answer consumer question that have been posted to retailer sites in real-time. In doing so, saying Krebsbach, retailers are directly able to enhance user experience and close sales that might otherwise have been abandoned, for example, where a customer is wavering before committing to a big-ticket item.
Particularly intersting is how brand to customer human dialogue can turn around what might have started out as a bad experience. Based on an analysis of data from more than 100,000 pieces of user-generated content, Baazarvoice says: "When consumers saw a brand's response to a negative review, their opinion of the product and their intent to purchase doubled compared to when they saw a negative review without a brand response offered to refund, upgrade or exchange a customer's product for a different model, shoppers were 92 per cent more likely to purchase than shoppers who saw no response."
The key lesson here, says lisa Pearson, chief marketing officer at Baazarvoice, is that "responsiveness is one of the most important dimension of "human" commercial relathionship.
Companies that want lasting relationship with consumer must partecipate in experiences that foster trust, dialogue, and collaboration."
Reviews, ratings and other forms of feedback aren't without their flaws (customers can be irritated by pop up surveys and are sometimes sceptical about the authenticity of reviews). But there's clear evidence that customer experience can be improved by soliciting opinions. The logical extension of this is to support behavioural and feedback-based analysiswith bespoke surveys.
US-based Demandware, for example, recently teamed up with the University of Arizona to survey 7,000 consumers in the US, UK, Germany and France. The result was an insightful piece of work about an audience segment that Demandware calls 'digital divas'.
The problem is that many companies are operatingwith systems that are not geared up for a consumercentric, omnichannel approach: "Consumers dictate and control the shopping process, but existing architecture, applications and vendor relationship aren't keeping pace," says Garf. "While there is an aspiration to better understand consumer behaviour,organisational structure to analyse and operationalise these insights. This has caused siloed systems that and complex integrations that slow innovation.
This, says Garf, is why Demandware has created Digital Store, a tablet-based solution that allows salesassistants to plug into customer, product and inventoryto get up to speed with a consumer journey that mayalready be under way. For example, sales assistants can search stock for in-store customers, whether that stock is in the store, a warehouse, or elsewhere. It also means shoppers can pay through web-based payment methods from the store. Also interesting is that items saved in the customer's cart can be added to any in-store purchases.
This emphasis on omnichannel shouldn't stop when the sale is sealed, adds Nick Peart, marketing director, EMEA at Zendesk , a company that builds cloud software for better customer service. His company has just published a piece of international research that focuses on post-sale customer service.
Explaining the rationale for this, Peart says: "Brands that get customer service right are likely to be rewarded with loyalty." This claim is backed up by data from the report. In the case of UK consumers, for example, 82 per cent said they would use a brand again if they received excellent customer service while 62 per cent said they would recommend such a brand to friends and family.
One area of real concern highlighted by Zendesk is the inadequacy of self-service solutions. While 53 per cent of people would like to use self-service, only 27 per cent do because they think the phone is a more effective channel. This gap widens among 18-34 year-olds, explains the report: "The younger the customer, the more likely they are to complain and the more demanding they are of brands to deliver real-time and self-service support options." In other words, explains Peart, companies that don't address this expectation gap risk alienating their most important demographic.
The quality of customer experience is vital within retail. Accordingly, more and more retailers are recognising the importance of techniques associated with personalisation – from the analysis of data to technologies that enable retailers to react in real-time to consumer demands.


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Once the propaganda and legend are stripped away, the Mantu seem to have been an insular, somewhat paranoid race of explorers and prospectors who reacted with extreme prejudice to Kilrathi aggression. Significantly, there is no suggestion in the historical record that the initial aggressor in the conflict was the Mantu. Probably the Kilrathi assaulted non-military Mantu vessels in much the same way that they did at the beginning of the Terran conflict.
The Kilrathi fear of the Mantu's return is well documented, but may well be merely a paranoid, atavistic response to an enemy left alive and at large (another well-documented trait of Kilrathi psychology). There is nothing substantial in the historical record to suggest any explicit promises of vengeance from the Mantu civilisation against the Kilrathi.
Furthermore, there is nothing in the current enemy's tactics or technology that corresponds to anything specific in the historical record of the Mantu. If the enemy is the Mantu they have completely changed their modus operandi in the last 250 years.
That being said, it must be admitted that the enemy's known level of technology could well have been achieved by the Mantu in the last two centuries, and they remain suspect, or at least a primary line of enquiry. The possibility of an alliance between some Kilrathi faction and their ancient Mantu enemies seems preposterous on the face of it, but given the massive recent upheavals in Kilrathi society, it cannot be ignored.
The second possibility from Kilrathi history is far more ancient and more nebulous, dating back approximately four millennia, to the dawn of Kilrathi civilisation and the Cult of Sivar.
Kilrathi myth holds that in ancient times, warrior-gods descended from the stars and challenged the warriors of Kilrah to battle. But when the Kilrathi army assembled, the gods scorned the force, pronouncing the Kilrathi unworthy of their attention. The gods left, promising to return and fight the Kilrathi when they became worthy.
This myth is the source of the famous "Prophecy of Sivar" (which many xeno-historians believe predates its reported author, the prophetess Kt'lan, and even the historical prophet Sivar himself, by several centuries), which formed a philosophic cornerstone of Kilrathi culture. The Prophecy and its surrounding myth have been explicitly used by religious propagandists throughout Kilrathi history to justify the race's militaristic and expansionist tendencies. All battles, including the Mantu, Hari
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Queen tour: Roger Taylor pays tribute to Brian May in the most beautiful way
Queen was famously made up of four very different personalities. The movie Bohemian Rhapsody showed how May and Taylor, along with Freddie Mercury and John Deacon, often clashed. In major interviews this year, May confessed the band had terrible fights and were often on the point of breaking up. So Taylor's latest comments are rather beautiful and heartwarming.
In one of his latest Instagram posts about the current North American tour May revealed he almost never agreed with his life-long bandmate about anything.
He wrote: "Me and my Bro' might disagree about anything you care to name, but we have learned mutual respect over the years, and somehow when we play together, some kind of magic still happens."
In return, Taylor paid tribute to just how close the two men really are. He also managed to slip in a cheeky joke.
Taylor wrote: "On my way to work with my closest friend in San Jose….. Yes, we knew the way."
He is, of course, referring to the classic Burt Bacharach track, Do You Know The Way To San Jose?
Fans were quick to celebrate the show of affection between the two idols.
Comments included: "Name a more iconic duo. I'll wait." "'My closest friend' bro omg I love y'all so much." "I've already cried over your friendship twice today don't make me do it again Rog."
The duo has just embarked on their biggest tour to date with Adam Lambert. The band will take in cities and stadiums across Canada and the US through July and August before heading across the globe to Korea, Japan and Australasia in January.
Still no news for Brits fans, though, who have an anxious wait to hear whether their idols will make it over here or not.
QUEEN + ADAM LAMBERT TOUR DETAILS HERE: http://www.queenonline.com/
Louise Redknapp parades endless legs as she strips off for racy bottomless snap
Slipknot Share Video Tribute to Late Founding Drummer Joey Jordison
One Direction: Are One Direction getting back together? Fans think THIS is a major clue
June Has Officially OFFICIALLY Lost It in This Week's 'Handmaid's Tale'
Bright Lights? Dimmer. Big City? More Distant.


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Food TV
by Gwendolyn Knapp Sep 25, 2012, 9:30am CDT
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Are you ready for "Bourdain on high octane," New Orleans? The new season of "The Layover," finally has an official premier date, November 19th, and features an episode shot in town, which must mean the high octane comes in a styrofoam cup. The Travel Channel is releasing a new 2.0 version of The Layover Guide with Anthony Bourdain app for iPhone and iPad in honor of the show's second season, but how long must we wait for a Cursing with Bourdain app? [EN]


Getting ready for SQL Saturday St. Louis. I had the pleasure of speaking there last year and it was a blast. Well sort of, my CloudShare environment died on me 3 hours before my session, but that experience aside, it was definitely a highlight for me. I'll be speaking about SharePoint and Yammer at Trek so stay tuned there.
Blog challenge at work – gotta write 1 blog post a week so I 'm getting my ducks all lined up so I can pwn.
Getting my head wrapped around SharePoint 2013 – so many cool things there it's not even funny.
On a completely unrelated side note (and because I need to get to 300 words in for this post due to point 3) I did all my holiday shopping through Amazon. Muuuuuuuch better way to go when it comes to getting everyone's Xmas gifts. Amazon Prime was money too. Highly suggest you give it a try.


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Home > Medicare > Kansas
Medicare in Kansas
Enrollment in Medicare Advantage is lower than average in Kansas; disabled Medicare beneficiaries have equal access to Medigap plans in Kansas
Photo credit: Mark Grapengater | Flickr
Louise Norris
Health insurance & health reform authority
More than half a million residents are enrolled in Medicare in Kansas
27% of Kansas Medicare beneficiaries select Medicare Advantage plans (up from just 16% in 2018)
Residents in Kansas can select from between 3 and 40 Medicare Advantage plans for 2020, depending on where they live
62 insurers offer Medigap plans in Kansas; Disabled beneficiaries under age 65 have the same access and premiums as those who age onto Medicare at 65.
About 54 percent of Kansas Medicare beneficiaries have stand-alone Part D prescription coverage
Per-enrollee spending for Medicare in Kansas is just slightly lower than the national average
How high is Medicare enrollment in Kansas?
544,530 Kansas residents were enrolled in Medicare as of July 2020, amounting to just under 19 percent of the state's population — very similar to the share of the total United States population enrolled in Medicare.
86 percent of Medicare beneficiaries in Kansas are eligible due to their age (ie, being at least 65), while the other 14 percent are under 65 and eligible for Medicare due to a disability that lasts at least 24 months (people with ALS or end-stage renal disease do not have to wait 24 months for Medicare eligibility). Nationwide, 85 percent of Medicare beneficiaries are eligible due to age, while 15 percent are eligible due to disability.
Medicare Advantage in Kansas
Original Medicare is available throughout the United States. And in most parts of the country, Medicare Advantage plans are available as an alternative, for people who prefer private health insurance. Medigap plans are available in all 105 counties in Kansas as of 2020.
16 percent of Kansas Medicare beneficiaries selected private Medicare Advantage plans as of 2018, which was much lower than the 34 percent of all Medicare beneficiaries nationwide had Medicare Advantage enrollment at that point. The remaining 84 percent of the state's Medicare beneficiaries had opted instead for coverage under Original Medicare.
Or call 855-577-4410 (TTY 771) to speak to a licensed insurance agent.
(Mon-Fri 8am-9pm, Sat 10am-7pm ET)
Total Medicare coverage enrollment has been growing nationwide, but Medicare Advantage enrollment has been growing even faster. As of mid-2020, 27 percent of Medicare beneficiaries in Kansas (116,505 people) were enrolled in private plans obtained through Medicare Advantage insurers (this does not count people with Original Medicare who supplement their coverage with private Medigap or Medicare Part D coverage). For reference, private Medicare enrollment had climbed to 40 percent nationwide by that point.
Medicare Advantage offers all of the benefits of Original Medicare (hospital inpatient care plus outpatient services), plus additional benefits like a cap on out-of-pocket costs, and in most cases, integrated Part D prescription drug coverage (the cap on out-of-pocket costs does not apply to the Part D coverage, however). Many Medicare Advantage plans also provide additional benefits and programs, such as dental and vision coverage, a 24-hour nurse hotline, gym memberships, and even assistance with things like transportation and in-home safety. And some Advantage plans have no monthly premiums other than the cost of Medicare Part B. But there are tradeoffs and limitations: Medicare Advantage plans have more limited networks than Original Medicare, and total out-of-pocket costs under an Advantage plan are typically higher than they would be with Original Medicare combined with Medigap and a stand-alone Part D plan.
Depending on the county in which they live, residents in Kansas can select from between three and 40 Medicare Advantage plans in 2020. Medicare beneficiaries can choose to enroll in a Medicare Advantage plan as long as they live within the plan's service area and do not have kidney failure (but as of 2021, beneficiaries with kidney failure will no longer be blocked from joining a Medicare Advantage plan).
During the annual Medicare election period each fall (October 15 to December 7), Medicare beneficiaries can switch between Medicare Advantage and Original Medicare, and can also make changes to their Part D coverage (but in most cases, there is not an opportunity to make a guarantee-issue change to Medigap coverage). There is also a Medicare Advantage open enrollment period (January 1 to March 31) during which people who are already enrolled in Medicare Advantage plans can switch to a different Medicare Advantage plan or drop their Medicare Advantage plan and enroll in Original Medicare instead.
Medigap in Kansas
Medigap plans are used to supplement Original Medicare, covering some or all of the out-of-pocket costs (for coinsurance and deductibles) that people would otherwise incur if they only had Original Medicare on its own. More than half of all Medicare beneficiaries have supplemental healthcare coverage from an employer's plan or Medicaid. But optional private Medigap plans are used by about 29 percent of Medicare beneficiaries as of 2016.
In Kansas, as of 2018, there were 248,506 people enrolled in Medigap plans. That amounted to about 45 percent of the state's Medicare population (Medicare Advantage enrollment is lower than the national average in Kansas and Original Medicare enrollment is higher; this results in a higher-than-average percentage of the Medicare population enrolled in Medigap plans, which can only be used to supplement Original Medicare coverage).
The Kansas Insurance Department publishes a Medigap buyer's guide, available here. There are 62 insurers offering Medigap plans in Kansas. Almost all of them use attained-age rating for setting monthly premiums, although a few use issue-age rating (here's how they both work).
Medigap plans are standardized under federal rules, and people are granted a six-month window, when they turn 65 and enroll in Original Medicare, during which coverage is guaranteed issue for Medigap plans. Federal rules do not, however, guarantee access to a Medigap plan if you're under 65 and eligible for Medicare as a result of a disability.
But Kansas is among the majority of the states with rules to ensure at least some access to Medigap plans for enrollees under the age of 65. And the consumer protections in Kanas are among the nation's strongest. In Kansas, all Medicare beneficiaries — including those who gain eligibility due to a disability and those who become eligible when they turn 65 — have the same guaranteed issue access to Medigap coverage (see page 4 of the Kansas Medigap buyer's guide).
Starting when a person is enrolled in Medicare Part B (regardless of their age), they have a six-month window during which coverage is guaranteed issue for all available Medigap plans. As long as the person enrolls during their six-month open enrollment window, insurers are required to charge younger, disabled beneficiaries the same premiums that apply to a 65-year-old. This is a stronger consumer protection than most states have; in the majority of the states where Medigap plans are guaranteed-issue for people under age 65, the insurers are allowed to charge higher prices for that population.
As is the case in every state, Kansas residents who are enrolled in Medicare prior to age 65 still have a guaranteed-issue Medigap open enrollment period when they turn 65, regardless of whether they already had Medigap coverage prior to turning 65. But since Kansas does not allow Medigap insurers to charge higher rates for younger enrollees, this is not as important as it is in other states where disabled beneficiaries pay much higher premiums and can then switch to a lower-cost plan when they turn 65.
Medicare Part D in Kansas
Original Medicare does not cover outpatient prescription drugs. But Medicare beneficiaries can get prescription coverage through Medicaid or an employer-sponsored plan (offered by a current or former employer). For people who don't have access to either of those, Medicare Part D is available to provide prescription coverage to Medicare beneficiaries. Part D coverage can be obtained as a stand-alone plan or integrated with a Medicare Advantage plan (about 90 percent of Medicare Advantage plans provide Part D coverage for prescription drugs).
As of July 2020, there were 297,651 Kansas Medicare beneficiaries with coverage under stand-alone Part D prescription drug plans. Another 103,563 Kansas Medicare beneficiaries had Part D coverage integrated with a Medicare Advantage plan at that point. Although overall Medicare enrollment in Kansas has been increasing, Medicare Advantage enrollment has been increasing faster. In the year from August 2019 to July 2020, total Medicare Part D enrollment in the state grew by more than 13,000 people. But enrollment in stand-alone Medicare Part D plans in Kansas decreased by almost 2,000 people, whereas enrollment in Part D as part of an Advantage plan increased by more than 15,000 people.
For 2020 coverage, there are 28 stand-alone Medicare Part D plans available in Kansas, with monthly premiums ranging from $13 to $75.
Medicare Part D enrollment is available during the annual open enrollment period each fall, from October 15 to December 7. You can change your plan multiple times during that window; the last plan change you make will take effect January 1 of the coming year.
Medicare spending in Kansas
In 2018, Original Medicare spent an average of $10,146 per beneficiary in Kansas. The data were standardized to eliminate differences in payment rates from one area to another, but it was only based on Original Medicare spending, so it did not include costs for Medicare Advantage enrollees.
The national average that year was $10,096 per enrollee, with spending on Medicare in Kansas only slightly below the national average. Average per-beneficiary spending in Original Medicare was highest in Louisiana ($11,932) and lowest in Hawaii ($6,971).
How does Medicaid provide financial assistance to Medicare beneficiaries in Kansas?
Many Medicare beneficiaries receive financial assistance through Medicaid with the cost of Medicare premiums, prescription drug expenses, and services not covered by Medicare – such as long-term care.
Our guide to financial assistance for Medicare beneficiaries in Kansas includes overviews of these benefits, including Extra Help, long-term care coverage, and eligibility guidelines.
Medicare in Kansas: Resources and information for Medicare beneficiaries and their caregivers
Need help with your Medicare application in Kansas? Got questions about Medicare eligibility in Kansas? You can contact SHICK — Senior Health Insurance Counseling for Kansas — with questions related to Medicare in Kansas.
The Kansas Insurance Department's website provides a comprehensive Medigap resource for people filing for Medicare benefits in Kansas and wishing to supplement the coverage with a Medigap plan. The page includes a general information guide to Medigap plans as well as a rate comparison tool.
Medicare.gov, maintained by CMS (the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services) provides information about every aspect of Medicare, and includes a healthcare provider finder tool as well as a plan finder tool that can help you determine which private insurers (Medigap, Part D, and Medicare Advantage) offer coverage in your area, and how much the monthly premiums will be.
The Medicare Rights Center provides Medicare-related assistance throughout the United States. They maintain a website and a call center where consumers can get answers to a wide range of questions about Medicare.
Louise Norris is an individual health insurance broker who has been writing about health insurance and health reform since 2006. She has written dozens of opinions and educational pieces about the Affordable Care Act for healthinsurance.org. Her state health exchange updates are regularly cited by media who cover health reform and by other health insurance experts.
Find Medicare plans.
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How to choose between Medicare Advantage, Medigap and Part D
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Do I need to sign up for Medicare at 65 if I'm still working?
Is there help for me if I can't afford Medicare's premiums?


When culturing cells from HIV-infected individuals, researchers found the medications tofacitinib and ruxolitinib block viral production from infected cells, prevent transmission to bystander cells, and decay the viral reservoir. The results were published in PLOS Pathogens.
"One of the major impediments to an HIV cure is the reservoir. These are a very small number of immune cells that have the virus integrated into their genomes. These cells are completely undetectable by the immune system because the virus is dormant. But as soon as you stop treatment, the virus reactivates," said the study's senior author Rafick-Pierre Sékaly, PhD, the Richard J. Fasenmyer Professor of Immunopathogenesis, co-director of the Center for AIDS Research Proteomics and Systems Biology Core, and professor of pathology at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. "Our results show you can kill these reservoir cells if you treat them with Jak inhibitors."
The new study included 37 people infected by HIV, but who have controlled the virus with antiretroviral drugs. The size of their residual reservoir – the number of cells with HIV integrated into their DNA – was linked to the activity of Jak enzymes in the cells. The research suggests blocking Jak enzymes could, in effect, impose a drought on the HIV reservoir. Laboratory experiments confirmed that Jak inhibitors prevent HIV spread to nearby, healthy cells.
Sékaly's foundational research into HIV reservoir persistence made him a natural collaborator for researchers at Emory University School of Medicine with expertise in small molecule Jak inhibitors. Co-corresponding author on the study is Raymond F. Schinazi, PhD, DSc, Frances Winship Walters Professor of Pediatrics and director of the Laboratory of Biochemical Pharmacology at Emory University. Schinazi is also the director of the HIV Cure Scientific Working Group at the Emory University Center for AIDS Research. One of the study's three first authors, Christina Gavegnano, PhD, is an assistant professor in Dr. Schinazi's group. Schinazi and Gavegnano previously reported that Jak inhibitors demonstrate antiviral potency in human immune cells, and that ruxolitinib can ameliorate HIV-associated encephalitis in a mouse model.
A key safety feature of Jak inhibitors in the study is that they are not globally immunosuppressive, but instead immunomodulatory. Says Sékaly, "Our results show how Jak inhibitors do not prevent the reservoir cells from responding to new infections."
The PLOS Pathogen paper showed Jak inhibitors do not block functional immune responses to HIV, or normal immune cell function. These findings are mirrored by data collected in humans where global immunosuppression is not reported with Jak inhibitors.
This mechanism of action is unique due to the drugs' apparent specificity for HIV-infected cells, unlike global immunosuppressive agents used in transplants, which blunt all activation and result in reduced functional immunity.
Explains Gavegnano, "Jak inhibitors are unique since they are highly selective agents that keep the lid on smoldering infection through anti-inflammatory properties. If the lid is on the smoldering fire long enough, it is our hope that the fire will be extinguished.
The study results have strengthened rationale for an ongoing, AIDS Clinical Trials Group (ACTG) Phase 2a multi-site trial to evaluate the safety, tolerability and efficacy of ruxolitinib in HIV-infected individuals.
"We are rigorously evaluating the effect of Jak inhibitors on key events that prevent eradication of HIV in culture, animal models, and humans. We are also carefully monitoring safety," says Gavegnano. "It is important to evaluate these agents from every possible angle, to ensure that we are delivering a safe and effective treatment. Our data to date provides reason to explore the indication of HIV for Jak inhibitors carefully. We look forward to understanding how blocking residual inflammation in HIV-infected cells can impact the ultimate goal of a cure."
The study was made possible by multiple grants to Sékaly from the National Institute of Mental Health and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Schinazi's team is funded by the National Institute of Mental Health of the National Institute of Health, and by the Emory Center for AIDS Research.


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Reason, emotion and embodiment: is 'mental' health a contradiction in terms?
UNSPECIFIED (2000) Reason, emotion and embodiment: is 'mental' health a contradiction in terms? SOCIOLOGY OF HEALTH & ILLNESS, 22 (5). pp. 559-581.
Taking as its starting point a series of traditional divisions and debates, this paper approaches issues of 'mental' health through the specific lens of the emotions. Key themes and organising principles here include the following: (i) reason versus emotion (ii) biology versus society (iii) the micro and the macro divide, and finally (iv) the medicalisation-demedicalisation of society. Each of these divisions is critically assessed and some 'new' ways forward provided through a commitment to the emotions, their relationship to 'mental' health and to rationality and, more generally, to their 'fate' in late 20th century Western society. The paper concludes with some further reflections on these and related emotional health matters, including a critique of the very notion of 'mental' health as a contradiction in terms.
R Medicine > RA Public aspects of medicine > RA0421 Public health. Hygiene. Preventive Medicine
H Social Sciences
SOCIOLOGY OF HEALTH & ILLNESS
BLACKWELL PUBL LTD
September 2000 UNSPECIFIED


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ISD Dunaferr - ISD Kokszoló Kft.
H-2400 Dunaújváros, Vasmű tér 1-3.
ISD Kokszoló Kft. performs activities by operating two coking batteries and associative coal preparing shop, coke screens, as well as chemical plant. The basic philosophy of the company having a production in the value of almost HUF 60 billion p.a. and employing more than 700 people is that coke and chemical products should be produced by applying environmentally friendly technology, in quality complying with the requirements of domestic and foreign markets, as well as of REACH. The safe application of products is described, their characteristics are included in their safety data sheets.
Coke production was started in the Coking Plant in 1956. Taking the changes of the market into account, as well as in order to utilize free coking capacities and sell coke products in a wider scale the present company was established in 1992 with 70% and 30% ownership of DUNAFERR Rt. respectively DBK GmbH Wien, and the company has been the subsidiary owned in 100% by ISD DUNAFERR Zrt. since 2007. DBK Kft. Budapest and DBK GmbH Wien are the exclusive distributors of raw materials and products.
The company has been performing activities since 1995 within the frame of the integrated quality and environment management system certified by the internationally known certifying company Det Norske Veristas – currently in accordance with the requirements of ISO 9001:2008 and ISO 14001:2004 standards.
Materials registered under REACH - ISD Kokszoló Kft.


In 2017, Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY had a population of 135k people with a median age of 33.7 and a median household income of $57,558. Between 2016 and 2017 the population of Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY grew from 134,295 to 134,975, a 0.506% increase and its median household income grew from $55,548 to $57,558, a 3.62% increase.
The population of Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY is 80.2% White Alone, 12.9% Hispanic or Latino, and 2.24% Black or African American Alone. 7.34% of the people in Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY speak a non-English language, and 97.4% are U.S. citizens.
The largest universities in Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY are University of Wyoming (3,057 degrees awarded in 2016), Laramie County Community College (797 degrees), and Wyotech-Laramie (496 degrees).
The median property value in Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY is $207,300, and the homeownership rate is 63.5%. Most people in Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY commute by N/A, and the average commute time is 14.3 minutes. The average car ownership in Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY is N/A per household.
Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY borders Fort Collins City PUMA, CO, Eagle, Summit, Grand & Jackson Counties PUMA, CO, Natrona, Carbon & Converse Counties PUMA, WY, North Central & Northwest Nebraska PUMA, NE, Eastern Plains Region PUMA, CO, and Campbell, Goshen, Platte, Johnson, Washakie, Weston, Crook & Niobrara Counties PUMA, WY.
The economy of Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY employs 67.2k people. The largest industries in Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY are Colleges, universities & professional schools, including junior colleges (5,617 people), Elementary & secondary schools (4,444 people), and Construction (4,017 people), and the highest paying industries are Offices of dentists ($108,435), Offices of physicians ($103,613), and U. S. Army ($101,218).
Median household income in Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY is $57,558. Males in Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY have an average income that is 1.32 times higher than the average income of females, which is $42,100. The income inequality in Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY (measured using the Gini index) is 0.437, which is lower than than the national average.
Households in Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY have a median annual income of $57,558, which is less than the median annual income of $60,336 across the entire United States. This is in comparison to a median income of $55,548 in 2016, which represents a 3.62% annual growth.
Look at the chart to see how the median household income in Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY compares to that of it's neighboring and parent geographies.
In 2017, full-time male employees in Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY made 1.32 times more than female employees.
This chart shows the gender-based wage disparity in the 5 most common occupations in Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY by number of full-time employees.
In 2017 the highest paid race/ethnicity of Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY workers was American Indian. These workers were paid 1.05 times more than Asian workers, who made the second highest salary of any race/ethnicity.
This chart shows the race- and ethnicity-based wage disparities in the 5 most common occupations in Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY by number of full-time employees.
In 2017, the income inequality in Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY was 0.437 according to the GINI calculation of the wage distribution. Income inequality had a 0.211% growth from 2016 to 2017, which means that wage distribution grew somewhat less even.
The 2017 the GINI for Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY was lower than than the national average of 0.479. In other words, wages are distributed more evenly in Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY in comparison to the national average.
This chart shows the number of workers in Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY across various wage buckets compared to the national average.
In 2017, the PUMA with the highest Median Household Income (Total) in Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY was Wind River Reservation PUMA, WY with a value of $65,727, followed by Campbell, Goshen, Platte, Johnson, Washakie, Weston, Crook & Niobrara Counties PUMA, WY and Natrona, Carbon & Converse Counties PUMA, WY, with respective values of $63,852 and $60,450.
The following map shows all of the PUMAs in Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY colored by their Median Household Income (Total).
N/A% of the population for whom poverty status is determined in Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY (N/A out of N/A people) live below the poverty line, a number that is approximately the same as the national average of 13.4%. The largest demographic living in poverty are N/A N/A, followed by N/A N/A and then N/A N/A.
The most common racial or ethnic group living below the poverty line in Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY is false, followed by false and false.
From 2016 to 2017, employment in Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY grew at a rate of 1.71%, from 66.1k employees to 67.2k employees.
The most common job groups, by number of people living in Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY, are Secretaries & administrative assistants (2,008 people), Firstline supervisors of retail sales workers (1,932 people), and Postsecondary teachers (1,891 people). This chart illustrates the share breakdown of the primary jobs held by residents of Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY.
The most common jobs held by residents of Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY, by number of employees, are Secretaries & administrative assistants (2,008 people), Firstline supervisors of retail sales workers (1,932 people), and Postsecondary teachers (1,891 people).
Compared to other pumas, Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY has an unusually high number of residents working as Locomotive engineers & operators (12.5 times higher than expected), Railroad conductors & yardmasters (10.6 times), and Miscellaneous social scientists, including survey researchers & sociologists (9.19 times).
The highest paid jobs held by residents of Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY, by average salary, are Physicians & surgeons ($181,178), Medical & health services managers ($136,309), and Pharmacists ($109,863).
The most common employment sectors for those who live in Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY, are Colleges, universities & professional schools, including junior colleges (5,617 people), Elementary & secondary schools (4,444 people), and Construction (4,017 people). This chart shows the share breakdown of the primary industries for residents of Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY, though some of these residents may live in Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY and work somewhere else. Census data is tagged to a residential address, not a work address.
The most common industries in Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY, by number of employees, are Colleges, universities & professional schools, including junior colleges (5,617 people), Elementary & secondary schools (4,444 people), and Construction (4,017 people).
Compared to other pumas, Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY has an unusually high number of U. S. Air Force (23.4 times higher than expected), Rail transportation (8.44 times), and Railroad rolling stock manufacturing (6.84 times) industries.
The highest paying industries in Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY, by average salary, are Offices of dentists ($108,435), Offices of physicians ($103,613), and U. S. Army ($101,218).
Domestic production and consumption consists of products and services shipped from Wyoming to other states, or from other states to Wyoming.
In 2015, the top outbound Wyoming product (by dollars) was Coal-n.e.c. with $24.2B, followed by Crude petroleum with $7.35B and Fuel oils and $5.14B.
The following chart shows the share of these products in relation to all outbound Wyoming products.
Showing data for Wyoming state.
In 2015, total outbound Wyoming trade was $59.3B. This is expected to increase 33.3% to $79.1B by 2045.
The following chart shows how the domestic outbound Wyoming trade is projected to change in comparison to its neighboring states.
Interstate trade consists of products and services shipped from Wyoming to other states, or from other states to Wyoming.
In 2015, the top outbound Wyoming domestic partner for goods and services (by dollars) was Utah with $9.62B, followed by Colorado with $6.9B and Nebraska and $3.97B.
The following map shows the amount of trade that Wyoming shares with each state (excluding itself).
N/A% of the population of Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY has health coverage, with N/A% on employee plans, N/A% on Medicaid, N/A% on Medicare, N/A% on non-group plans, and N/A% on military or VA plans.
Per capita personal health care spending in the puma of Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY was $8,320 in 2014. This is a 4.51% increase from the previous year ($7,961).
Primary care physicians in Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY see 1499 patients per year on average, which represents a 2.67% increase from the previous year (1460 patients). Compare this to dentists who see 1557 patients per year, and mental health providers who see 334 patients per year.
Data is only available at the state level. Showing data for Wyoming.
Primary care physicians in Wyoming see an average of 1499 patients per year. This represents a 2.67% increase from the previous year (1460 patients).
The following chart shows how the number of patients seen by primary care physicians has been changing over time in Wyoming in comparison to neighboring states.
Between 2013 and 2014, all personal health care spending per capita in Wyoming (including private, Medicare, and Medicaid) grew 4.51%, from $7,961 to $8,320.
Between N/A and N/A, the percent of uninsured citizens in Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY N/A by N/A from N/A% to N/A%.
The following chart shows how the percent of uninsured individuals in Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY changed over time compared with the percent of individuals enrolled in various types of health insurance.
Big Horn County has the highest prevalence of diabetes in Wyoming, at 11.9%.
The following map shows the prevalence of diabetes in Wyoming by county over multiple years.
Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY is home to a population of 135k people, from which 97.4% are citizens. As of 2017, N/A% of Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY residents were born outside of the country.
The ethnic composition of the population of Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY is composed of 108k White Alone residents (80.2%), 17.4k Hispanic or Latino residents (12.9%), 3.02k Black or African American Alone residents (2.24%), 2.92k Two or More Races residents (2.16%), 2.2k Asian Alone residents (1.63%), 1.05k American Indian & Alaska Native Alone residents (0.775%), 134 Some Other Race Alone residents (0.0993%), and 99 Native Hawaiian & Other Pacific Islander Alone residents (0.0733%).
The most common foreign languages spoken in Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY are Spanish or Spanish Creole (5,622 speakers), Chinese (612 speakers), and German (377 speakers).
In 2017, the median age of all people in Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY was 33.7. Native-born citizens, with a median age of N/A, were generally N/A than foreign-born citizens, with a median age of N/A. But people in Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY are getting getting older. In 2016, the average age of all Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY residents was 34.
As of 2017, N/A% of Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY residents were born outside of the United States, which is approximately the same as the national average of 13.7%. In 2016, the percentage of foreign-born citizens in Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY was 3.91%, meaning that the rate has been maintaining.
The following chart shows the percentage of foreign-born residents in Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY compared to that of it's neighboring and parent geographies.
In 2017, the most common birthplace for the foreign-born residents of Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY was Mexico, the natal country of 1,567 Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY residents, followed by China with 511 and England with 313.
As of 2017, 97.4% of Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY residents were US citizens, which is higher than the national average of 93.1%. In 2016, the percentage of US citizens in Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY was 97.7%, meaning that the rate of citizenship has been decreasing.
The following chart shows US citizenship percentages in Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY compared to that of it's neighboring and parent geographies.
In 2017, there were 6.23 times more White Alone residents (108k people) in Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY than any other race or ethnicity. There were 17.4k Hispanic or Latino and 3.02k Black or African American Alone residents, the second and third most common racial or ethnic groups.
The following bar chart shows the 8 races and ethnicities represented in Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY as a share of the total population.
7.34% of Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY citizens are speakers of a non-English language, which is lower than the national average of 21.5%. In 2015, the most common non-English language spoken in Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY was Spanish or Spanish Creole. 4.51% of the overall population of Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY are native Spanish or Spanish Creole speakers. 0.491% speak Chinese and 0.303% speak Spanish or Spanish Creole, the next two most common languages.
Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY has a large population of military personnel who served in false, N/A times greater than any other conflict.
In 2016, universities in Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY awarded 4,397 degrees. The student population of Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY is skewed towards women, with 8,294 male students and 8,802 female students.
Most students graduating from Universities in Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY are White (3,368 and 80.5%), followed by Unknown (310 and 7.41%), Hispanic or Latino (249 and 5.95%), and Two or More Races (100 and 2.39%).
The largest universities in Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY by number of degrees awarded are University of Wyoming (3,057 and 69.5%), Laramie County Community College (797 and 18.1%), and Wyotech-Laramie (496 and 11.3%).
The most popular majors in Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY are Registered Nursing (268 and 6.1%), Diesel Mechanics Technology (258 and 5.87%), and Autobody & Collision Repair Technology (189 and 4.3%).
The median tuition costs in Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY are $18,021 for private four year colleges, and $2,976 and $11,904 respectively, for public four year colleges for in-state students and out-of-state students.
In 2015, the most common concentation for Bachelors Degree recipients in Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY was Registered Nursing with 188 degrees awarded.
This visualization illustrates the percentage of students graduating with a Bachelors Degree from schools in Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY according to their major.
In 2016, the Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY institution with the largest number of graduating students was University of Wyoming with 3,057 degrees awarded.
In 2016, 2,191 men were awarded degrees from institutions in Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY, which is 0.993 times less than the 2,206 female students who received degrees in the same year.
This chart displays the gender disparity between the institutions in Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY by degrees awarded.
In 2016 the majority of degrees awarded at institutions in Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY were to White students. These 3,368 degrees mean that there were 10.9 times more White students then the next closest race/ethnicity group, Unknown, with 310 degrees awarded.
The median property value in Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY was $207,300 in 2017, which is 0.953 times smaller than the national average of $217,600. Between 2016 and 2017 the median property value increased from $200,800 to $207,300, a 3.24% increase. The homeownership rate in Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY is 63.5%, which is lower than the national average of 63.9%. People in Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY have an average commute time of 14.3 minutes, and they commute by N/A. Car ownership in Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY is approximately the same as the national average, with an average of N/A per household.
In 2017, the median household income of the N/A households in Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY grew to $57,558 from the previous year's value of $55,548.
The following chart displays the households in Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY distributed between a series of income buckets compared to the national averages for each bucket. The largest share of households have an income in the N/A range.
In 2017, the median property value in Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY grew to to $207,300 from the previous year's value of $200,800.
The following charts display, first, the property values in Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY compared to it's parent and neighbor geographies and, second, owner-occupied housing units distributed between a series of property value buckets compared to the national averages for each bucket. In Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY the largest share of households have a property value in the N/A range.
This chart shows the households in Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY distributed between a series of property tax buckets compared to the national averages for each bucket. In Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY the largest share of households pay taxes in the $800 - $1,499 range.
In 2017, 63.5% of the housing units in Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY were occupied by their owner. This percentage grew from the previous year's rate of 62.7%.
This percentage of owner-occupation is lower than the national average of 63.9%. This chart shows the ownership percentage in Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY compared it's parent and neighboring geographies.
The following chart displays the households in Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY distributed between a series of car ownership buckets compared to the national averages for each bucket. The largest share of households in Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY have N/A, followed by N/A.
Using averages, employees in Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY have a shorter commute time (14.3 minutes) than the normal US worker (25.1 minutes). Additionally, 1.24% of the workforce in Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY have "super commutes" in excess of 90 minutes.
The chart below shows how the median household income in Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY compares to that of it's neighboring and parent geographies.
In N/A, the most common method of travel for workers in Laramie & Albany Counties PUMA, WY was N/A, followed by those who N/A and those who N/A.


Eureka residents were just getting their day started when the earth began to shake.
An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.8 struck about 100 miles off the coast of Northern California Thursday morning, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
The quake struck at 6:50 a.m. about 104 miles off the coast of Eureka. USGS initially registered the earthquake as magnitude-6.9, but downgraded it about 15 minutes later.


text:
Otherworldly Evil Monarch (Web Novel) - Chapter 1024 - Will You Tell Me About Her?
Published at 10th of November 2019 11:15 am
Chapter 1024: Will You Tell Me About Her?
Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
Zhan Xiao Xiao would never have thought even in his wildest dreams that the opponent would take out that sword at this time since he said that he was going to let it recuperate! With his dantian pierced by the sword, even if he wanted to explode his core, he couldn't! He could only watch blankly while that fiendish sword absorbed away the precious essence Qi that he'd built up over his entire life!
Finally, Zhan Xiao Xiao slowly shut his eyes forever…
How could Jun Mo Xie let his sword miss such a nutritious meal? This was a soul that had been thoroughly ignited ah… there weren't even the slightest bit of impurities and it was the purest, ownerless thing! Since Zhan Xiao Xiao had chosen this method of commiting suicide, Jun Mo Xie would naturally fulfill him. Although, it was another method of fulfillment…
The previously dim light around the Blood of Yellow Flame strengthened into a strange blood color and then grew brighter once again. The brilliant light flowed around the sword and finally. with a peng sound, Zhan Xiao Xiao's body disintegrated into ashes, scattering into the wind!
A light sword keen rang out from the Blood of Yellow Flame and it flew into the air, spun round, and hovered before Jun Mo Xie with a content buzz.
Although the sword's body was still damaged, its spirit had already recovered completely and was in fact even more extraordinary than before. Swallowing the spirit energy of two Saint Venerables had granted it a huge amount of strength! When it finished digesting all the energy, the Blood of Yellow Flame's strength would surely rise to yet another level! As for the damage to the sword's body, that was a secondary concern. With Young Master Jun's Power of Gold, as long as he had enough metal, it could be remedied with ease!
Today's matter had finally come to an end.
Jun Mo Xie sucked in a deep breath of air. How close ah… The power of a Saint Venerable was indeed not something that he could go head on against. Even that last strike when his opponent was left with the last bit of strength had already left him with heavy injuries!
If not for him having so many backup plans and a control over the five elements, it would be difficult to say what the results today would be…
For some reason, police officers always arrived at the scene when the crime was already over. From the looks of it, the reinforcements of the Misty Illusory Manor were the same as well!
Numerous figures of people could be seen appearing from the distance as the experts of the Misty Illusory Manor finally arrived…
When Miao Jing Yun and all the experts arrived, all that greeted their sights was the huge scene of destruction. The entire area was in a mess, and even the mountains on the two sides had half collapsed. A huge patch of dark cloud hung high up in the sky, slowly dissipating. On the ground, countless patches of charred black spots could be seen, while some areas were wet…
There wasn't any rain here in recent periods, so what was going on?
The terrifying extent of this battle could be seen with a single glance. The Saint Venerables that saw this scene all could not help but feel a great shock in their hearts… There was no need to witness the fight themselves. Just by looking at the scene, the image of the battle had already formed in their minds…
Zhan Wu Yun looked at the scene of destruction, his eyes darting uneasily…
"Everyone, quickly search around the area! See if there are any traces of Mo Jun Ye…" Miao Jing Yun commanded. The group had searched all along the way as they pursued, finally arriving here. If it was just based on a straight line distance, they would have reached here a long time ago. It's just that when they looked from a large distance away, nothing abnormal could be seen from this area. There weren't even any commotion or sounds, so the crowd had not thought to search here…
By the time the noises of the battle travelled to them, the battle here had already ended…
Cao Guo Feng and the rest instantly charged through the forest towards them…
A short moment later, excited cries rang out from deep in the woods. "Found him! We found him!" Following that, a Saint Venerable rushed out with a sou sound, carrying something in his arms. His smiled with some disbelief. "This little rascal is actually still asleep…"
The crowd instantly surged over to look. Wrapped within a thick bundle of blankets, that Free and Natural Physique kid was sleeping in an extremely snug manner…
"What a great life, ah!" Miao Jing Yun sighed with a complicated voice. "Countless experts are running thousands of li through the night for his sake, while people are fighting and killing each other for his sake. Yet he's sleeping so soundly while everything is going on… Indeed, different people have different lives…"
"Manor Lord, this kid isn't actually asleep… he's just had his sleeping acupoint poked…" Someone said.
"Do I still need you to tell me that? Can I not see it for myself?" Miao Jing Yun shook his head and snapped as he looked at the heavily damaged land. "Let's hurry back. The two people who fought here have likely left already…"
This matter could be said to have a huge impact on the Misty Illusory Manor. But for some reason, the entire thing was being forcefully suppressed by all the higher ups. In just the next day, nobody was mentioning this incident at all. It was as if such a heaven shaking thing had not happened at all…
The only thing was that the security around Jun Mo Xie's residence had grown much heavier now…
Though everything seemed quiet and calm on the surface, the large families could sense the movement of dark undercurrents beneath the surface… The large families also appeared ordinary on the surface, but the atmosphere inside each family was much heavier as they prepared to make changes at anytime…
In contrast, the Zhan Family seemed completely normal, still maintaining that arrogant and confrontational demeanor. However, their deepest core was already in a state of utter chaos!
The first thing that Zhan Wu Yun did when he came back was to go and report the entire matter in detail to the old ancestor Zhan Lun Hui. Zhan Wu Yun did not know about Zhan Xiao Xiao's secret mission, and even after he reported to Zhan Lun Hui, the latter had not shown much of a reaction…
But by noon of the second day, when there were still no news of Zhan Xiao Xiao, Zhan Lun Hui truly began to panic. Zhan Xiao Xiao was one of the few top experts of the Zhan Family and a powerful character with great authority! As a Saint Venerable expert, no matter how heavily injured he was, there was still no reason for him to not return after so long!
Even if his physical body had been completely destroyed, his Holy Infant should have returned long ago. It couldn't be that even his Holy Infant had been destroyed, right?
Zhan Wu Yun immediately called Zhan Wu Yun over and questioned him more thoroughly.
"You said… that there were marks of a fire burning through the battlefield?" When he heard the details, that there were marks of fire, Zhan Lun Hui's face instantly changed as an exceedingly ominous feeling appeared in his heart.
For fire marks to appear in a fight between peak level experts… that meant…
"Yes, there were definitely clear burn marks on the battlefield." Although Zhan Wu Yun didn't quite understand why the old ancestor would suddenly ask about this, he still answered carefully. When he saw Zhan Lun Hui's face turn more and more ugly, he could not help but feel anxious as well and quickly swallowed his questions back down his throat.
"There's nothing else. You may go now." Zhan Lun Hui sighed heavily and fell powerlessly back onto his chair. There was an indescribable fatigue in his eyes as he waved heavily and said.
"Yes. This junior will take my leave." Zhan Wu Yun looked timidly at Zhan Lun Hui's face and left with confusion on his face.
"Wait." Zhan Lun Hui shut his eyes and said in a light voice, "Tell Yi Xiao and Zhan Tu that I'm going to go into seclusion, and let them come here to guard me. In this time, nobody… is allowed to act rashly! From now on, no matter what huge events happen, do not act anxiously! Everything shall wait until after I come out!"
"How long will old ancestor be in seclusion for this time?" Zhan Wu Yun asked tentatively.
"At most three months, and if I'm fast… one month is enough!" Zhan Lun Hui said with his eyes shut. For some reason, Zhan Wu Yun felt that the old ancestor's tone was filled with a bleak and desolate feeling, like a setting sun… It was as if something bad had happened…
Time passed quickly, and in the blink of an eye, three days had already passed.
Today was the celebration of Manor Lord Miao Jing Yun's 500th birthday!
The entire Miao Family was filled with an atmosphere of joy and celebration.
Jun Mo Xie could be said to have been exceedingly idle in these few days. He would practice some martial arts when he had nothing to do, and naturally, the speed of his progression had caused another round of amazed gasps from the Saint Emperors. From time to time, Miao Xiao Miao would skip over to chat with him. Some old fellows would also drop by occasionally to recommend their granddaughters or great granddaughters…
Overall, his situation could be summed up in a few words—calm and peaceful.
And tomorrow would be the actual date of Miao Jing Yun's 500th birthday!
The day after that would be the day to enter the Spiritual Herbal Gardens!
His time in the Misty Illusory Manor was finally coming to an end!
Perhaps the day later, he would be leaving this place, and he might never return ever again.
Although he'd only stayed here for a short time, the things he'd done for the Misty Illusory Manor were not little. At the very least, he'd destroyed the several thousand year old scheme of the Zhan Family and even killed two of the Zhan Family's Saint Venerables, greatly lessening their strengths and possibly preventing a great danger in the Misty Illusory Manor. These… should be enough to absolve his crime of lying to them right? As his thoughts travelled here, Jun Mo Xie sighed heavily…
This kind of guilt on his conscience was truly a little difficult to bear…
In these few days, Miao Xiao Miao's extra tenderness and care had caused Young Master Jun to feel even more uncomfortable…
"Dummy, what are you thinking about?" Seeing Jun Mo Xie somewhat distracted, Miao Xiao Miao asked gently. In this period of time, Miao Xiao Miao had been as warm and gentle as she could with him, even using such an intimate name like 'dummy' with him, completely removing the 'Young Master' form of address. As she'd said before, she wished to use her gentle love to help Jun Mo Xie heal the pain in his heart…
"It's nothing…" Jun Mo Xie sighed again.
"Can you… talk to me about it… is it her?" Rather than letting him keep it in his heart, she would rather he spill the painful memories. That way, he might feel a bit better. If he kept all those emotions in his heart all the time, it would become an emotional problem later on.
"Her?" Jun Mo Xie turned his head absentmindedly and asked in a confused manner. "Which her?"
"The person… in your heart…" Miao Xiao Miao said in a tiny voice. "That her whom you couldn't forget…"


The northern Death Valley fault zone (NDVFZ) has long been recognized as a major right-lateral strike-slip fault in the eastern California shear zone (ECSZ). However, its geologic slip rate has been difficult to determine. Using high-resolution digital topographic imagery and terrestrial cosmogenic nuclide dating, we present the first geochronologically determined slip rate for the NDVFZ. Our study focuses on the Red Wall Canyon alluvial fan, which exposes clean dextral offsets of seven channels. Analysis of airborne laser swath mapping data indicates ∼297 ± 9 m of right-lateral displacement on the fault system since the late Pleistocene. In situ terrestrial cosmogenic 10Be and 36Cl geochronology was used to date the Red Wall Canyon fan and a second, correlative fan also cut by the fault. Beryllium 10 dates from large cobbles and boulders provide a maximum age of 70 +22/−20 ka for the offset landforms. The minimum age of the alluvial fan deposits based on 36Cl depth profiles is 63 ± 8 ka. Combining the offset measurement with the cosmogenic 10Be date yields a geologic fault slip rate of 4.2 +1.9/−1.1 mm yr−1, whereas the 36Cl data indicate 4.7 +0.9/−0.6 mm yr−1 of slip. Summing these slip rates with known rates on the Owens Valley, Hunter Mountain, and Stateline faults at similar latitudes suggests a total geologic slip rate across the northern ECSZ of ∼8.5 to 10 mm yr−1. This rate is commensurate with the overall geodetic rate and implies that the apparent discrepancy between geologic and geodetic data observed in the Mojave section of the ECSZ does not extend north of the Garlock fault. Although the overall geodetic rates are similar, the best estimates based on geology predict higher strain rates in the eastern part of the ECSZ than to the west, whereas the observed geodetic strain is relatively constant.
Frankel, K. L., Brantley, K. S., Dolan, J. F., Finkel, R., Klinger, R. E., Knott, J., Machette, M., Owen, L. A., Phillips, F., Slate, J. L., & Wernicke, B. P. (2007). Cosmogenic 10Be and 36Cl geochronology of offset alluvial fans along the northern Death Valley fault zone: Implications for transient strain in the eastern California shear zone. Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, 112(B06407). doi: 10.1029/2006JB004350.